I just can't be asked...

Megan with all of her luggage.
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My friend Megan and I decided that instead of flocking to some place warm for the spring break holiday, that we would venture on over to England and do some hardcore traveling. This was my first time in England, but Megan has been over here twice before--her first trip being to study abroad at a university here in Twickenham (about a 30 minute trip from London with all of the buss/train/tube connections.)

Our trip started out rough...I had three midterms the day we flew out of Cedar Rapids, so I was a little preoccupied and wasn't allowed the right amount of time to prepare myself for the trip with packing and planning in general. But maybe that is why this trip is going so great anyway--we haven't made any concrete plans. We've just been taking each day as it comes, and so far we've made a lot of fun memories and friends along the way.

When we got to our seats on the plane headed for London, we were put in Economy Plus for no extra charge and even got hot towels...

My luggage.
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So yeah, to start from the beginning:

Pre-London

We stopped in at the Cedar Rapids airport bar since we got to the airport about 2 hours early and had a quick drink. I felt so sophisticated doing so, since this has been my first trip since I turned 21 and am legal to drink in ALL countries (even my own.) The airport was the busiest I think I've ever seen it, probably since it was the Thursdsay before spring break and everyone was trying to beat the rush of college spring break'ers. The 45-minute flight to Chicago was successful, but the terminals were congested at O'Hare so we were stuck in our plane waiting for another to get out of the way so we could get off. We knew we were going to be pressed for time to begin with since we only had an hour lee-way before our flight to London departed, but we didn't expect to have such a problem unboarding the plane. They ended up getting as close as they could to the terminal and letting us off outside so those of us who were cutting it close could run and attempt to catch our connecting flights. We actually met a girl who is from China originally, but was on our flight trying to catch the same connecting flight to London. She is a student at the University of Iowa as well and I think her name was Ivy.

Double decker buses. FUN.
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Anyway, Ivy, Megan and I ended up running clear to the other side of O'hare with our bags and purses flying everywhere excusing ourselves when we came close to knocking people over. It was classic...just like you always see people doing in movies. We were lucky and our plane had gotten delayed fifteen minutes. I was so sore the next day. On the bright side, when we got to our seats on the plane headed for London, we were put in Economy Plus for no extra charge and even got hot towels twice throughout the duration of our flight.

Trying to find our way around.
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I was seated next to the cutest little English boy named Dillon (2 years) and his mother Jennie. To make a long story short, Dillon looked at me, slapped me on the arm (because he was tired and cranky and not wanting to go to sleep on the overnight flight) and eventually cuddled up and was sleeping on my arm later on in the flight. So funny and so random. Jennie works in central London as a hospitality manager for a cruise service and gave us her card and told us to call when we made our way into the city for some cruise vouchers. I guess it pays to let small children be mean to you and use you as pillows. Seven hours later we arrived in the beautiful city of London, at the Heathrow airport.